Some fables have more than one moral. Remember Aesop's tale of the ant and the grasshopper?

No fairy-tale ending to that one. The grasshopper lives in the moment until he is starving, while the hardworking ant thrives. The moral: preparing for the future trumps frittering away time.

So, we know how well the ant and the grasshopper prepare for winter, but what happens when they go to school?

As a college professor and education consultant, I've spent 20 years watching ants fare better than grasshoppers. Schools, faculty and staff know exactly what to do with students who are prudent, hardworking and methodical. Unfortunately, the grasshoppers often mystify and frustrate educators. They're bouncy creatures who require teachers to deviate from the script, and this clashes with America's standardized approach to schooling.

After years of trying to figure out why ants do better than grasshoppers, I realized there is another, unintended moral embedded in the fable. It's a lesson Aesop did not mention, but Nobel-prize winner Daniel Kahneman highlights in his book Thinking, Fast and Slow. Regardless of how logical we are, we are each of two minds -- a little bit ant and a little bit grasshopper. To be successful and happy in school and life, we have to let ourselves be both.

Our ant mind is rational and evaluative. Our grasshopper mind is intuitive and hedonistic. Our ant mind might be better at ensuring our survival, but it's our grasshopper mind that helps us reach happiness. Learning is the work of the head and the heart. And too many schools are only focused on the ant side of our minds, while doing nothing to engage the grasshopper side. Each of us is really an ant-grasshopper hybrid.

Psychological reform of education is achievable, but only if we appreciate that students and teachers think both like the ant and the grasshopper. To improve our schools, education leaders need to acknowledge:

Learning is an emotional process. It's not rational and orderly. It's fun, noisy, messy and spontaneous. Interest turns us on to a topic, curiosity leads us to ask questions, imagination and creativity test answers. Only then do we start thinking about the best solutions to problems. See how the grasshopper sneaks in before the ant? To better understand the social-emotional realities of learning, we can ask students how their rational and emotional selves contribute to their success and happiness.

Teachers are at their best when they know their stuff and when they're emotionally invested. Unfortunately, less than one-third of teachers are engaged in their jobs, according to Gallup research, and from what I've seen, it's often because our ant-loving school system undermines the grasshopper in teachers, too. Once a teacher is disengaged, it is hard for them to spark interest and teach in a way that makes students want to learn. They have to have the spark to share the spark. And guess who does that? The grasshopper side of a teacher. This is the teacher who inspires the students to do the ant work.

From preschools to graduate schools, we need to teach both the ant and the grasshopper. We need to get back to valuing student intuition, emotions and creativity as central to learning.